Bruce Wayne's First Adventure
by DC3.14159265
Summary: Part of the Earth Pi series, written by Ares81: A young Bruce Wayne gets his first taste of the life he's chosen to dedicate himself to, including deadly enemies, strange friends... and crazy blondes.
1. Chapter 1

Bruce Wayne's First Adventure

_Chapter 1_:

Bruce Wayne's story was one that was well known. When he was eight years old, he watched as his parents were brutally gunned down in front of him. Being one of the most wealthy and influential families in Gotham, and probably the whole of the United States, the story was covered on every news broadcast around the country and many around the world. He spent the first five years after his parent's death being hounded by paparazzi and constant interview requests, but Bruce wasn't interested in what the public thought of him or what they wanted to see. He didn't care about getting his fifteen minutes of fame or about the money they were offering. Bruce Wayne cared about one thing and one thing only; fulfilling a promise.

By age fourteen, Bruce had gotten his high school degree, private tutors and his unwavering drive enabled him to finish far earlier than any of the kids he'd gone to school with before his parent's death, and he decided it was time to leave Gotham behind for awhile. After a few healthy donations, the University of Oxford agreed to allow Bruce to attend class despite his young age, so he made his way to England.

Oxford was more than simply a prestigious university; it also offered Bruce a chance to study in one of the best biochemistry and forensic science programs in the world. Some childish part of him also enjoyed the idea of being so close to the city where one of his childhood heroes, the illustrious Sherlock Holmes, was based. Holmes was a fictional character and his cases had little basis in the reality of today, but they had served to teach a young boy the value of logic and a keen mind.

His first two years of study were hard ones; not so much because of the studying itself, but being significantly younger than the other students made him somewhat of a standout. Lacking a social life didn't bother Bruce; he needed the time for the extra courses he'd taken as well as his... _extra-curricular_ activities, but being a standout often got attention he didn't want. Girls who thought they could flash some cleavage at him and get him to do their projects for him, or guys who thought they could intimidate him into cheating for them.

He moved from school to school to find the best instructors in the courses he needed. He jumped from Oxford, to Cambridge, to Imperial College in London and even did a semester at the Sorbonne in Paris before transferring back to Oxford again. Many times his professors would pull him aside to tell him that he was bright and determined but needed to focus on one area. All he would do is nod and agree. They couldn't hope to understand. Fighting a war against injustice and organized crime meant he'd have to be an expert in dozens of fields. His studies ranged greatly but he focused mostly on criminology, chemistry, electrical engineering, computer sciences and forensics. Far too wide a focus to get a degree, but Bruce didn't need a piece of paper, he needed the knowledge.

What free time Bruce had, he spent in a small dojo he'd found about a two hours run from the campus. It was run by a man known only as O-Sensei. Despite his age (Bruce guessed the man to be in his eighties), O-Sensei was an incredibly skilled fighter and faster than anyone Bruce had ever seen in his life. Unlike most dojo's O-Sensei took in very few students and would quickly dismiss one if they didn't show the necessary effort. He didn't concentrate on any one discipline; his teachings incorporated hundreds of martial arts techniques ranging from Aikido to Yaw-Yan. A pair of the older students, Ben and Richard once told Bruce that he had trained most of the world's best martial artists in his time in China and was highly sought after.

After a particularly gruelling training class, Bruce had once asked O-Sensei why such a sought after master would come to a small town in England to run a dojo almost no one knew existed. His answer was as cryptic as always: "It is where I needed to be." Bruce simply shook his head. For the life in him he couldn't understand why people couldn't just give a straight answer!

About a week before his seventeenth birthday, Bruce got a chance to head to London to watch the world heavyweight boxing champion, Ted Grant, ply his craft. Ted Grant was more than just a boxer. Though he preferred to use his fists, Grant was a world class fighter who became somewhat of a folk hero when he took down a small time crime boss in Battery Park City, New York. He'd been framed for the murder of his mentor and ended up solving the crime while being a fugitive from the law at the same time. It was a story that was right out of a Hollywood action movie and brought fans in droves to watch the champ wherever he fought. Bruce, however, wasn't interested in an autograph.

Ted Grant was regarded by most everyone in the martial artist community as the world's best puncher, and Bruce wanted to learn why. It had cost him almost half a million dollars, but he'd managed to buy a day of training with Champ two days before the big fight.

Although Bruce wouldn't have access to the full fortune of the Wayne Empire until he turned eighteen, he still had access to much of the Wayne family personal fortune, with some restrictions. Half a million dollars was no small amount of money, but if he could learn how this beer drinking, uneducated, brutish... for lack of a better term, _roughneck_, had managed to become the most feared puncher in the world, it would be worth it.


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter 2:_

Bruce had never been hit so hard in his life. For a moment he couldn't remember where he was and he wasn't even sure he remembered who he was.

"You okay kid?" asked the very large man who'd just hit him like a Mack truck.

"Y-yeah, Mr. Grant" Bruce replied in a very shaky voice as he struggled to get back to his feet. "Just learning to take a hit."

"Ha!" Grant laughed while a trainer reached over the ropes to give him a puff on his cigar. "You got guts, kid. I'll give you that!"

Bruce put on the fake smile he'd gotten so good at as a child when Alfred insisted that he "try not to brood" in front of whatever guest had finally gotten around to coming to pay their respects. He was too busy studying the Champ's release to indulge in idle chatter. Instead he pushed his mouth guard back in and made his way across the ring.

Ted Grant was a hulk of a man. He stood only slightly taller than Bruce at about six foot one, but easily outweighed him by half again, tipping the scales at nearly two-hundred and twenty five pounds according to his last weigh in. His arms were like tree trunks, but they weren't the bulky show things of a body builder. Each muscle was shaped for a single purpose, to land a devastating punch.

Bruce did his best to mimic the powerhouse swings coming his direction, but it was easy to see that the Champ was holding back, and as much as Bruce wanted to see him at full power, his skull was thankful the large man was taking pity on him.

Pity or not, though, it didn't mean Bruce wasn't going to get knocked out if he wasn't careful. Despite his crude nature and the fact that he was taking swigs of his pint of porter each time he waited for Bruce to pick himself up off the mat, when he started to box, he was like a wild cat, completely focused on his prey.

Seeing another massive right hook coming his way, Bruce deftly dodged the blow and unloaded a solid body shot on the champ. Although he might not be able to hit with as much power as the big man, he'd trained in martial arts for most of his life, starting with Alfred when he was barely seven years old. He knew how to dodge and how to strike.

His victory was short lived however as all of his past training didn't account for having oversized, padded boxing gloves on and Ted Grant, though surprised by the hit, wasn't fazed by it and quickly answered with an overhead left that left Bruce wondering what day it was and how he managed to find himself on the mat half way across the ring.

"You're not too bright, huh?" a blonde haired girl asked from the floor beside the ring as Bruce tried to push himself back up.

"Excuse me?" Bruce asked as he tried to shake the cobwebs from his head.

"You don't pick a fist fight with a grizzly," she replied, shaking her head and grinning like she was explaining the most obvious thing in the world. "He's just _slightly_ out of your weight class. Next time, try not to let him hit you."

"Thanks..." Bruce answered sardonically as he wiled himself back to his feet and leaned back against the ropes.

"Okay, Kid," Grant called to him as he downed the last of his beer. "I think that's enough for one day. I don't need a lawsuit for givin' a kid a concussion. I'm sure these Brits have some law against that."

"I'm fine Mr. Grant," Bruce assured him. He wasn't ready to give up just yet.

"Sorry kid, but enough is enough," Ted dismissed him. "My niece there will take you back to the locker room to get cleaned up."

"Do I get a say in this?" the blonde girl chirped.

"Nope," Grant replied with a grin. "You know what I had to go through to get your mom to agree to this little trip across the pond? I think you can help out our young friend here, Dinah."

With a hearty sigh, the Dinah turned to Bruce and motioned for him to follow her.

"Come on," she instructed. "I guess after getting your head knocked around like that, you probably could use a guide back to the lockers."

"Aren't you a little young to be hanging around in a boxing gym?" Bruce asked as he took off his gloves and headgear.

"I'm sixteen," Dinah shot back over her shoulder. "And besides, can you think of a better place to learn to punch?"

"You're learning to box?" Bruce practically scoffed.

He regretted it as soon as the words were out of his mouth and even more so when the pretty young girl whirled around, giving him a glare that froze him in his tracks.

"What's wrong with that?" she half shouted at him. "Just because I'm a girl I can't box?"

"Well, no," Bruce answered. "But you're what? Ninety pounds, soaking wet?"

Dinah was maybe five foot six. She was wearing a tank top and a pair of workout shorts that let him see that, despite her young age, she was extremely toned. In fact she was extremely attractive, a fact not lost on the many young men training in the gym, though no doubt the threat of her uncle was what kept the stares to a minimum.

"I'm ninety-three pounds, and I could still kick your ass!" she pointedly responded.

"I don't mean to insult," Bruce replied, putting his hands up in surrender. "I just meant it's hard to put much force behind a punch when you have so little body-weight to put into it."

Dinah raised one of her perfectly groomed eyebrows at him then, like an idea suddenly struck her, she smiled, grabbed him by the wrist and took off at a half jog towards the heavy bags, practically dragging Bruce along with her.

"Here," she said, pulling him into position behind a heavy bag. "Let me show you just how hard this '_little girl' _can punch.

Bruce had learned a half dozen techniques to increase the power behind a punch and he was well aware that even someone small could learn _where_ to hit to do significant damage, but how hard one could hit was simply limited by physics. There was no doubt that this girl was in great shape for her age and could probably hit harder than most sixteen year old boys, never mind girls, but even this heavy bag outweighed her. None the less, Bruce decided to do as she asked. There was no point in insulting her further.

"You don't have to prove anything to me," Bruce said as he half-heatedly gripped the large bag to steady it.

"No, I don't," Dinah replied with a wicked grin. "But it'll be fun!" and with that she released her best punch on the unsuspecting bag.

Completely caught off guard by the sheer force of the strike, Bruce nearly lost his balance when the bag swung back against him, not an easy feat to accomplish when the young man in question had spent months learning to balance on the top of small wooden stakes.

"Whoa," Bruce let out a startled gasp. "What was that?"

"That," Dinah replied with a victory grin across her face, "was a definite 'I told you so'."

"Okay, I'm willing to admit when I'm wrong," Bruce conceded. "Now show me _how_ you did it."

The fiery blonde was only too happy to show the now humbled older boy just how she was able to put him in his place.

"It's called Jireugi," she explained. "About a year ago, I broke my knuckle on my uncle Ted's jaw in a sparring match, 'boxers knuckle' they call it," she showed him the back of her hand and how the last knuckle sank a bit lower than the others. "The Jireugi is a way for a small person to hit a big person without breaking their hand. And it packs a mean punch!"

For the next twenty minutes, Dinah went about instructing Bruce on exactly how the punch worked. Years of training let him catch on quicker than most, but like any new technique, it wasn't going to be perfected in a day.

"You know, you're pretty good for a rich boy," Dinah said, almost as though she hadn't intended the last part as an insult. "How come you want to learn to box so bad? Most rich boys I've met are more interested in spending mommy and daddy's money to impress the girls."

"Happens to you a lot, huh?" Bruce scoffed. "I may be a 'rich boy' but I've got other priorities than impressing some girl."

If Dinah was taken aback by his response, she didn't show it and any retort she might have offered was interrupted by the sounds of breaking glass as nearly two dozen men poured into the gym. Some dropping through the building's massive skylight, others coming in every doorway and window.

Every exit was covered.

Armed men attacking a gym in and of itself was strange, but what really struck Bruce as odd was that these men weren't armed with guns, they were armed with swords, sickles, knives and other martial weapons. All of the men were dressed in modified Shinobi shozoku, the traditional outfit of ninjitsu, but with body armour covering their torso, shins and forearms.

"Ted Grant," one of the men called out as he approached the ring where the champ was now sparing with a more sizable opponent. "You are to come with us. Now."

"Like hell," Grant replied with grin. "You want me? Come and get me!"

"We were told you may be uncooperative," the masked man replied entirely too calmly. "We were also told you would do anything to protect your young niece."

"Touch her and they'll be picking your teeth up on the other side of the English Channel!" Grant yelled as he hopped over the top rope to the floor and charged at his would be kidnaper.

Apparently taking their cue, a half dozen of the masked men started moving in on Dinah. Bruce _almost_ felt sorry for the first man that tried to grab her. No doubt they made the same mistake he had and thought her a harmless little girl and, just like Bruce, he quickly realized his mistake. Though Bruce was thankful his lesson had been less severe, as he didn't imagine that man was ever going to be anything but a soprano again.

The remaining five men would not be so easily caught off guard as they charged in. Dinah landed a roundhouse kick to the face of one of her attackers before two others managed to grab and restrain her. No doubt they assumed it was over, but they had dismissed Bruce as just another of the frightened young boxers in the gym, a mistake that would cost them dearly.

Bruce quickly kicked one of the men in the back of the knee, dropping him to all fours before striking him across the face with a devastating elbow. The remaining four men of the group quickly turned their attention to their new found opponent and Dinah took full advantage, slamming her head back into the face of the man holding her before once again demonstrating just how effective her Jireugi punch could be as she whirled around and unleashed it into the man's chest, sending him crashing to the floor.

"I thought you weren't much of a fighter?" Dinah questioned as she moved beside Bruce, facing off against the last three men like an old west showdown.

"I'm not much of a boxer," Bruce explained. "There're no rules here."

The remaining three men drew their weapons in preparation for their attack. The man on Bruce's right drew a pair of escrima sticks from the holster on his thigh. The man on his left chose a meteor hammer; an extremely difficult weapon the master, the meteor hammer normally consisted of two weights attached by a long rope or chain, but this one seemed to use a type of flexible cable that allowed it to stretch slightly as he spun it. The last man was more traditional in his choice of weapons, drawing a Katana sword from the holster on his back. Although the weapon was the least exotic, it was without a doubt the most deadly of the three.

"Rules are good," Dinah quipped with a bit of fear in her voice. "Like no weapons. I like that rule."

"Stay behind me," Bruce ordered as he deftly dodged the first strike of the meteor hammer that flew towards his head.

The man with the escrima sticks was the next to attack, and Bruce took advantage of his shorter range by quickly positioning the man between himself and the men with the meteor hammer and sword. Escrima sticks could easily be deadly if used properly, but they were by far the least lethal of the weapons in question.

"Like hell!" Dinah defiantly shouted as she kicked the man in the ribs. That girl was definitely going to be trouble.

Taking advantage of the man's surprise, Bruce quickly grabbed his arm and swung him around, using one of the escrima sticks to block an oncoming strike from the Katana and capitalizing on the momentary entanglement to release a spin kick to the head of the sword wielding man. It wasn't a finishing blow by any means, but it did knock him back and buy a bit of time.

Once again Bruce found himself dodging the flying weight of the meteor hammer as it soared through the air, entirely too close to Bruce's head. That weapon was the biggest threat at the moment because of the range advantage it gave.

Avoiding the hammer having put Bruce momentary off balance, he soon felt the pain of an escrima stick striking his ribs and had to quickly adjust himself to avoid a follow up blow to the face. In his lessons at the dojo, Ben had often used escrima sticks as part of their training, and the sting of their strike was not an unfamiliar sensation to him, but certainly not one he enjoyed.

Grabbing the left arm of his attacker, Bruce pulled the man towards himself, elbowing him hard in the ribs and head butting him in the face, sending him staggering back.

Dinah was currently using the heavy bag to avoid the swinging weight of the meteor hammer, and though Bruce wasn't sure if it was intentional, she'd drawn the man in close. Not wanting to waste the opportunity, Bruce launched himself at the man in a very unglamorous tackle, knocking him from his feet. A quick series of elbows and fists left the man bloody and unconscious.

"Watch out!" he heard Dinah call to him just as he saw the glint off the Katana coming towards him. He moved quickly enough to avoid the majority of the strike, but the blood pouring down the back of his shoulder told him he didn't miss it completely. His first battle scar. His first reminder of what a mistake could cost him.

Another slice from the Katana sent Bruce rolling across the floor. He pushed himself to one knee and grabbed the meteor hammer from the unconscious man beside him, quickly bringing the strong cable up to block another attack from the sword and using a sweep kick to knock the swordsman on his back.

The man perfectly executed a back roll to bring himself back to his feet, the two warriors now standing about six feet apart. Bruce let the meteor hammer's weight drop to a few inches above the floor and began to spin it.

"Ha, that's no child's toy, boy," the man laughed.

Bruce quickly answered his taunt by letting the hammer fly and forcing him to dodge the deadly weapon. Not letting up on his temporary advantage, Bruce charged forward, pulling the hammer back through the air, then jumping and spinning pulling the hammer behind him and yanking it down with such devastating force that it sent shards of the hard concrete floor flying as it impacted. Having to avoid the strike itself and deal with the tiny stone shards that flew out in its wake, his opponent had staggered backwards and Bruce wasted no time pressing his charge forward. He slapped the man's sword arm aside with his left hand and struck him with a powerful right hook to the face, putting to use much of the punching lessons he'd received today.

As Bruce stood over the now unconscious swordsman, he turned in surprise at the sound of clapping.

"Not bad kid," Ted Grant said with a grin. "Looks like you might have a bit of a boxer in you after all."

Bruce looked around to see Dinah standing triumphantly, one foot on the back of the man with the escrima sticks, one of them having been broken over his head. Grant was tossing an unconscious hundred and eighty five pound man aside like a discarded rag doll and there was a path of broken and battered would-be-kidnappers from the ring to where the three now stood.

While Bruce was proud of himself for taking down three men on his own, the Champ had taken nearly a dozen and though he was loathed to admit it, the tiny sixteen year old girl beside him and actually equalled Bruce's total, though Bruce figured he'd helped with two of them.

The smiles quickly faded though as a small dart struck the side of Grant's neck and he winced in pain.

"You have thirty six hours to live Ted Grant," one of the attackers called from a doorway across the room. "Go down in the sixth round and the antidote will be delivered to your dressing room, go down any earlier or last any longer and it'll be your last fight."

With that the man disappeared into the shadows and despite Bruce, Dinah and Grant reaching the doorway only a couple of seconds later, the man had completely disappeared. Bruce made a mental note to figure out how to do that.

"Uncle Ted, we have to get you to a doctor!" Dinah said with obvious worry in her voice.

"We will, Little Bird," Grant said in a soft tone that seemed somewhat out of place for the big man. "But there're a lot of kids here that need our help first."

Looking around, Bruce realized what the Champ meant. A number of the young boxers had tried to join in the fight and didn't fare well. There were several bloody and beaten young men trying to pick themselves up and a couple that would never be getting up again. Bruce, Dinah and Ted each made their way over to the injured and began helping them however they could until the ambulances arrived.

When the police got on the scene, Bruce made a quick and subtle exit, not wanting to draw the attention of the authorities or the media to the billionaire teenager who fought back against ninjas. Bruce had no interest in being in the headlines again, or letting the world know he was a trained fighter.

Before leaving though, he took a chance and grabbed a couple of things from the now unconscious and restrained attackers. A glove that may have fingerprints on the inside, a shoe that the Champ had knocked a man clean out of, just in case it could lead him to where the attackers had came from and most importantly, the small poison dart Grant had discarded after pulling it from his neck. If he could run tests on the poison, he might be able to get an idea of who and what they were dealing with.

"Where are you going?" Bruce cringed as heard Dinah call to him. "And why are you taking that stuff? The police might need it."

Sighing, Bruce turned and decided it was best to explain at least _part _of the truth to her. She deserved that much.

"The police have plenty of evidence in there, but it'll take them days if not weeks to get it sent to a lab and tested," he explained. "I've got access to a university lab. I'm going to run some tests of my own."

"You heard what that man said," Dinah said, her voice cracking a bit. "My Uncle has less than two days before that poison kills him, if you're going after the guys that did this, I'm going with you!"

"I'm just going to run a few tests…" Bruce started.

"Bull shit!" Dinah hollered, causing Bruce to quickly look around for any police and then pull Dinah into an empty room off to the side. "I've seen you fight Bruce, there's no way someone with that much training is just going to do some lab work!"

"Look, I'm just going to run some tests on this stuff and see what we're dealing with," Bruce said, trying to keep the understandably distraught young woman calm. "If I get any leads, I'll let the police know."

"So we can wait a day or two for them to get a warrant?" Dinah asked rhetorically, grabbing his shirt in her fist. "My Uncle means the world to me! I already had to bury my Dad, there's no way in hell I'm going to watch Uncle Ted die too!"

Tears had begun to form in the corner of her pleading eyes and she quickly turned away from him in an attempt to hide them.

"Do you know what it's like to lose someone you love, Bruce? How helpless it makes you feel?" she asked him, obviously not knowing just how intimately familiar he was with that feeling.

"It's going to take me a few hours to run these tests," Bruce explained as he put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Meet me back here tonight at nine and we'll go over what I've got."

"I can't just sit here and do nothing!" Dinah exclaimed.

"Then go with the police," Bruce suggested. "See if you can get them to give you any details when they interrogate these guys."

"Give me your cell phone," Dinah ordered.

"I don't have one," Bruce answered. He hadn't bothered to use one since he'd gotten to England. It was inevitable that some reporter would get the number and start badgering him.

"Gah, who doesn't carry a cell phone now days? What kind of rich kid are you?" Thankfully her question was again rhetorical, and she simply grabbed his hand and began writing her phone number on the back of it. "I'll be here at nine, but if you get anything before then or if you want to meet sooner, you call me, okay?"

"Okay," Bruce agreed.

"And I swear to God, if you stand me up..." she didn't finish the sentence, but the glare she gave said everything.

"I'll be here," Bruce reassured her, though he was beginning to feel like this was some kind of insane date. This girl was _definitely _trouble.

Hearing sounds out in the hallway, Dinah motioned for Bruce to stay put and she went out in the hall. He heard her talking to a couple of police officers, playing the tearful niece and they happily escorted her back to her uncle, giving Bruce plenty of time to slip out the back door.


	3. Chapter 3

_Chapter 3:_

Going all the way back to the university would take a couple of hours and there just wasn't time for four hours of travelling as well as hours of lab tests. Luckily, Bruce had other options.

Wayne Technologies had one of the most advanced biochemistry labs in the world setup right here in London England and, with a quick call to his father's long time friend and current CEO of Wayne Enterprises, Lucius Fox, Bruce had arranged for a few hours of lab time to work on his 'school project'.

Hours of lab tests left Bruce with a bitter taste in his mouth. He'd been able to recover a couple of partial prints from the glove, but even after hacking into Wayne Tech's secure police assistance program, he hadn't been able to match the prints. He would have liked to have had more prints to work with, but he suspected he'd end up with the same result anyway. These men were trained to be ninjas, and not the kind you'd see in a cheap Hollywood movie either.

The shoe gave him a few results but nothing of any real significance. He knew the man wearing it had been in the countryside a few miles outside of London, but couldn't narrow it down any more than that. In those police forensic shows on TV, there would always some piece of evidence that could only possibly be from one place, but in the real world, the dirt from north of London wasn't any different from the dirt to the east or west.

The dart, however, did give Bruce some hope. The poison in the dart was distilled from a Philippine Cobra, drop for drop the most deadly venom of all the Cobra species. The venom was a neurotoxin that impeded cardiac and respiratory function, and could cause neurotoxicity, respiratory paralysis and death in as little as thirty minutes. Thankfully, the venom had been somewhat deluded to make its effect take longer, but the unique chemical mixture only delayed the effects, not lessened them and in the process rendered a normal anti-venom useless. Bruce was sure a skilled toxicologist would be able to adapt an anti-toxin to do the job with a few days work, but Grant didn't have that long.

_Speaking of not having long_, Bruce thought as he glanced at the time. He had to meet Dinah back at the gym in less than an hour.

Grabbing his gym bag and all of the evidence he'd collected, Bruce made a quick detour over to the R&D department to pick up a new toy they'd been working on. It was a new generation of cell phone running the latest Wayne Tech OS, but this one was upgraded with micro-fluidics technology.

Making a descript exit before anyone could question why the teenager would want such an advanced piece of technology, Bruce decided to make a pit stop at a nearby sporting and clothing store. He'd worn a silk dress shirt and formal slacks to the gym before changing into his now sweaty shorts and t-shirt. He needed to pick up something more appropriate for a possible fight... and looking good wasn't a bad thing either. Not that he had anyone to impress.

It was about a quarter to nine when Bruce arrived back at the gym. He was wearing a black dress shirt, but unlike the silk one he'd had on earlier today, this one was made from the same high-tech fibres as most athletic gear, letting it stretch and move easier. He'd also picked up a pair of blue jeans and black athletic shoes to finish the look. It was mostly chosen for utility, but he thought he looked pretty good too.

He wasn't really surprised to see Dinah sitting on the front steps playing with her cell phone and looking like she'd been there for hours. Whatever else Bruce might have thought about her; there was no doubting how much Ted Grant meant to her.

Dinah was wearing a short, black leather jacket over a hot pink blouse, blue jeans and white sneakers. She looked _very_ good; not that he noticed.

"I wasn't sure you were going to show up," she said as soon as he got close.

"Did you find out anything from the police interrogations?" he asked. Bruce knew he was dodging the implied question, but the truth was he wasn't exactly sure why he showed up either. As much as he knew the legal system was too broken to be able to deal with organized crime, he also knew that two teenagers weren't likely to be able to track down trained assassins.

"I guess you haven't been watching the news, huh?" she said as she pulled up a video on her cell phone and played it for him. "The police transport was attacked on the way to the station. Every single one of the attackers got away."

As Bruce watched the video he couldn't help but notice the weaponry being used. They were firing energy weapons and what looked like a plasma grenade; things that were supposed to be the stuff of science fiction or at least a few decades away from production.

"The police said the weapons they used aren't like anything they've ever seen before. They were completely out gunned," Dinah finished.

"Those weapons…" Bruce began before tailing off and losing himself in his own thoughts. He pulled out his cell phone and began accessing the Wayne Tech secure network.

"What? What is it?" Dinah asked, obviously frustrated with Bruce's lack of communication skills.

"Energy weapons like that have to release some amount of radiation," he explained without looking up from his work. "If we can pick up a unique radiation signature from those weapons, I may be able to tune MI5's anti-terrorist satellite detection system to home in on the weapons current location."

"Umm, I'm guessing that's not exactly legal," Dinah said, raising a perfectly groomed eyebrow.

"I won't tell if you don't," he replied and the two sat in silence for a moment while he worked.

"What the hell is this all about anyway?" Dinah blurted out. "I mean why send ninja guys to attack a boxer?"

"Given the weapons they used to break their men out, my first guess would be money laundering," Bruce posited. "Ted Grant is expected to win this fight easily. If he loses, anyone who bet against him could stand to win a lot of money. If they pick the round he loses in, the winnings could easily be in the millions, and all of it clean money."

"So the three guys that died in the gym today, the ones that they injured, and poisoning my uncle was all just for money?" Dinah spat out in disgust. "Okay, I really want to hit someone now."

"We need a car," Bruce said somewhat absentmindedly.

"I've got something better!" Dinah replied with a wicked grin that concerned Bruce more than he cared to admit.

Following her around the corner, he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her mount a thirteen hundred cc Harley Davidson Fat boy. It was an impressive bike both in looks and power, but he wasn't sure he was ready to trust the feisty sixteen year old girl he'd just met to handle it.

"Oh come on," Dinah called, obviously noticing his hesitation. "You want to get there fast, right?"

"I'd also like to get there alive," he countered.

"I've been driving these things since I was twelve," she replied as she strapped on her helmet. "Hop on."

"You do have your licence, right?" Bruce asked as he put on his own helmet.

"The boy just hacked a satellite and now he's worried about getting a traffic ticket," she quipped.

"Just worried about getting there in one piece."

"You are such a downer. You have to learn to take some risks in this life, Brucie!" she teased.

He really hated that name.

"And yes, I do have my licence," she informed him as she started the engine. "Well, my beginners anyway."

Before he had a chance to argue the point she kicked the bike in gear and took off with enough speed that Bruce was forced to wrap his free arm around her to keep from falling off while gripping his phone for dear life with the other hand.

After the single most terrifying ride of Bruce's life, through the streets (and sometimes sidewalks) of London, they managed to get to the scene of the attack on the police convoy. It was still cordoned off and Bruce was taken aback by the level of destruction.

There were huge craters in the street, cars and police vans lay as burned out husks and even one of the old brownstone buildings that lined the street had been completely levelled.

"My god," Bruce gasped at the site. "How many people were killed?"

"Three officers and seven more were seriously injured, including three civilians," Dinah replied. "As tragic as that is; seeing all this damage up close like this, I'm amazed that was all."

Nodding in agreement, Bruce gave himself a mental shake and began scanning the area.

"So exactly what kind of cell phone is capable of scanning for radiation?" Dinah asked. "I don't remember that being on the list of features for the latest iPhone."

"It's not a cell phone, at least it's not _just_ a cell phone," Bruce replied. "It's a prototype from Wayne Tech's micro-fluidics R&D. The layman's term is lab on a chip."

"Whoa, so I'm guessing that's not going to be on next year's model either then, huh?"

"It's being designed for the military," he explained as he ducked under the police tape and continued to scan the area. "It has sensors for radiation, testing fluids or even tracking electromagnetic signals. Basically it can be used to search for just about anything if you've got the right software."

"And thankfully you just happen to have a program designed to track Star Trek weapons sitting around?"

"I just reconfigured the algorithms the NEST teams use for detecting nuclear fusion devices," he replied, only half paying attention to the confused look on her face.

"So your Saturday nights aren't a lot of fun, huh?" Dinah said, shaking her head.

"I think I've got it," Bruce said as he squatted down next to a burnt out van. "Looks like an expended energy cell from one of the weapons. The radiation signature is still strong enough for me to get a lock on it."

"How long is going until you know if you can track it?" Dinah asked.

"I'm starting the satellite scan now," Bruce explained without looking up. "Depending on how big a cache of weapons they have, the signature could be too weak to…"

"What? What is it?"

"That is a _lot_ of radiation," Bruce replied and showed her the large glowing area over a map of the eastern part of Hackney.

"So that means we can find them, right?" Diana asked with hope creeping into her voice.

"It means we probably can find them, but they are going to be _very_ heavily armed," he answered. "We're going to badly out gunned and so will the police."

"Well we don't have to fight them, we just have to find the antidote and get out," Dinah argued.

"That's assuming we can get past a group of trained killers without setting off any alarms, not to mention…" Bruce tailed off as he noticed the look on her face. He already felt like an ass at suggesting they turn around and didn't want to hurt her more.

"Not to mention what?" Dinah practically shouted at him. "They have an antidote! They said they did, all we have to do is find it!"

"Dinah…" Bruce started before she cut him off.

"No!" Dinah hollered as she grabbed his shirt and pushed him up against a wall. "I'm not an idiot Bruce. I know it makes more sense for them to let Ted die than to give him the cure, but it also makes sense to have a contingency plan. They have an antidote, I know it! I know it…"

She let go of him and turned her back to him, obviously not wanting him to see her cry. Bruce had never felt like more of a dick in his life.

"We can get to Hackney in about twenty minutes," Bruce said as he made his way back to the bike. "I'll try to configure my console to help us get a more accurate location on the way."

Dinah's eyes lit up and she rushed up and hugged him.

"Okay, okay," Bruce said, suddenly feeling very awkward. "Let's get moving."

"Afraid of girls, huh?" she said with a smile as she mounted the bike. "Don't worry Bruce, you're cute, but I'm not into the dark and brooding type."

"Brooding?" he questioned as she hit the gas and again nearly threw him off the back of the bike.

They soon found themselves in the eastern part of Hackney and in one of the least reputable parts of the city. The marshes nearby would have been beautiful during the day, but at night they were simply a place for the worst scum in the city to hide.

Buildings were run down and several were boarded up. The streets were filled with junkies and gangs and Bruce instinctively found himself scanning in all directions for threats.

They traced the radiation signal to an industrial building that bordered the marshes. The area was surrounded by high fences, security cameras and a couple of patrolling guards. There was little doubt they were in the right spot, and little doubt that a base like this couldn't be active without someone in the government and police being aware. Whoever these people were, they were well funded enough to buy off whoever they needed to.

"According to the map, there's an alley on the south end of the complex that should get us pretty close before we have to hop the fence," Bruce said.

"What are the chances they forgot to put cameras and guards there?" Dinah asked sardonically.

The alley was far narrower than the typical Gotham alley, but it had a similar feel. It was poorly lit, dirty and, judging from the a few used condoms on the ground, a popular spot for prostitution.

Bruce nearly fell over when Dinah suddenly turned and slammed her lips into his. It took him a couple of seconds to realize there was a patrol walking along the top of the wall that deadened the small alley. When the guard moved on, Dinah broke the kiss.

"You know, being the guy who's supposed to be the prince of Gotham, you're not a very good kisser," Dinah laughed, no doubt noticing Bruce's face was as red as a fire truck.

"A little warning next time would be nice," Bruce scolded.

"Oh, you're already looking forward to a second kiss?" Dinah laughed. "I must be good!"

Bruce glared at her for a moment before deciding to get back to the job at hand. He pulled out his phone and quickly began scanning for the complex's wireless signal and hacked in. Once he was in he started recording the signal for each camera and scanned through the different feeds looking for some clue as to where they might find the antidote.

"There!" Dinah called, looking over his shoulder. "That's one of the guys that got away from the cops."

"And the guy he's talking to," Bruce pointed to the screen. "I think he's the guy that hit Grant with the dart."

"How can you tell?" Dinah asked. "They were all wearing masks."

"His injuries are consistent with the slurred speech of his threat, his height, weight and stance match and there was a small scar over his left eye that you can just barely make out," Bruce explained.

"And you just happened to notice all that in the middle of a fight?" she questioned with a raise of her eyebrow.

"You didn't?" Bruce asked like it was the most obvious thing in the world and enjoyed his small bit of revenge as she huffed at him. "I can disable one camera at a time without it being noticed, but we're going to have to move quickly and stay ahead of the patrols. The guard for this area should be walking back around in about thirty seconds. We'll make our move after he's gone past."

"No problem," Dinah replied as she took off her jacket, ruffled her hair and undid a couple of buttons on her blouse.

"W-what are you doing?" Bruce questioned, once again feeling a little awkward.

"It's been nearly fifteen minutes since the last time he came by," Dinah explained as she stepped closer to him. "He's going to notice if we're still just standing here."

Bruce instinctively backed up a few steps and actually tripped on the curb, falling to his butt. O-Sensei would have him training his balance for a month if he'd seen that. Dinah, on the other hand, took advantage of the situation and straddled his waist, wrapping her arms around his neck and pull his face close to hers.

"Don't worry, prince charming," she whispered. "This is just a show. Just pretend you enjoy having a little hottie grinding with you."

Bruce decided two things at that moment. First, boxers really didn't offer much discretion. Second, this girl was going to be a _lot_ of trouble for some guy.

Peaking over her shoulder he was more than a little annoyed to see the guard had stopped to enjoy the show and was grinning like an idiot. Dinah was barely sixteen, and not even legal age for the thirty-something guard. His gawking at her was disgusting and Bruce promised himself that before they left he'd knock that smirk off his face.

"Is he still watching or are you just enjoying this?" Dinah whispered.

"The pervert stopped to watch the show," Bruce countered. "We need to make a move soon or he's going to get suspicious."

Dinah grinned and suddenly reached down and tore Bruce's shirt open and started running her finger nails down his chest.

"Not what I meant," he whispered. "I don't think this is going to make him leave any sooner."

"Eventually someone's going to notice he's out of position and he'll have to move," Dinah reasoned. "Nice abs. How many crunches do you do a day?"

Bruce was just about to remind her that he was doing her a favour and could walk away any time when they heard the guard's radio crackle.

"Seventeen, you're out of position. What's your status?" the voice crackled.

"Seventeen here. Just checking… ah… a possible threat. It's nothing. Moving now."

The guard cast another sickening look their way before he started moving again.

"We're clear," Bruce whispered with more urgency than he'd intended as he practically picked Dinah up as he quickly stood, suddenly finding far too warm to have her body heat that close to him.

For her part, Dinah just wore a knowing grin as she slowly did up the buttons of her blouse again. _Definitely trouble._


	4. Chapter 4

_Chapter 4:_

Bruce grabbed his backpack and quickly set his phone to override the camera watching the alley.

"Come on," Bruce called as he ran at a side wall of the alley, jumping and kicking off it to grab the top of the wall and pulled himself up. He reached down to offer Dinah a hand only to have her copy his move and pull herself up. Bruce once again reminded himself that despite her _party girl_ attitude, this wasn't a girl to be underestimated.

He made sure to leave a little present behind for the pervert guard then they quickly made their way through the complex, disabling cameras as they went and being careful to avoid the patrols. Once inside the main building, it began to become much more difficult to move quickly. There were dozens of guards, thugs, scientists and even businessmen roaming the halls. Most, including the man they were looking for, were gathering in a large central room.

"What _is_ this place?" Dinah whispered.

Bruce just shook his head and quickly led her into an adjoining office that let them hear the proceedings inside. Pulling up the surveillance video they watched as a large man in an expensive suit stood at the front of the gathered crowd.

"As you saw today, our weapons offer you firepower far beyond that of any police force or even military in the world," the man said as he picked up a weapon of a design Bruce didn't recognize. Turning to a target several feet behind him, the man fired the weapon, unleashing an energy pulse that completely obliterated the target and the wall behind it. "But more than that, the weapons we've brought today are capable of reshaping the face of the planet, in some cases; literally."

The man picked up something from the table of weapons beside him that looked like a slightly oversized, metallic football.

"The boys at the lab call this little beauty a Schwarzschild trigger, I call it one bad-ass bomb," he said as he tossed the device to one of the men he was obviously trying to sell it to.

"Hey!" the man hollered as he caught the device and quickly set it down on the table as gently as possible.

"Ha ha, don't worry!" the salesman laughed. "You could run that little gem over with a truck and it wouldn't detonate. Without the right arming code, it's useless."

"A Schwarz-a-what?" Dinah whispered.

"Schwarzschild was a physicist in the early nineteen hundreds who's worked helped prove the existence of black holes," Bruce explained. "And I can't say I like the implication of a bomb that's carrying his name."

"Arm that little baby and when the timer stops, London and everything for another ten miles beyond it in any direction is nothing but a hole in the ground," the salesman finished. "All you have to do is finish a few jobs for Intergang and you'll have an arsenal to rival any country in the world."

"We need to take out those weapons," Bruce whispered.

"We're just here for the antidote," Dinah reminded him. "This is _way_ over our heads."

"If those weapons get out of here, thousands, if not millions of people are going to die," Bruce argued. "I _can't_ let that happen. I _won't_ let someone else lose their family because I didn't stop it." The last statement came out with a bit more force than Bruce intended and he wasn't even sure it was the weapons he was talking about anymore.

"Okay," Dinah said putting a comforting hand on his forearm. "Ted or my Mom would never walk away from this, I guess I can't either."

Bruce nodded his thanks, then turned his attention back to the job at hand.

"There's a lab setup just down the hall from here," Bruce said as he switched the video to the lab camera. "The snake in that aquarium is the same one that's venom was used in the poison they hit Grant with."

"So that's probably where the cure is!" Dinah reasoned.

Bruce nodded his agreement, "That was my thought."

Making their way silently down the hall, they turned into the lab and locked the door behind them, hoping it would buy them a few seconds if someone came to check the lab.

Bruce moved quickly to the computer, pulling a USB cable from his phone and plugging it in. It only took a minute to get through the basic security and get access to the files on the system.

_Guess they weren't expecting anyone to be able to get in here,_ Bruce thought. It was the only reason he could think of for having such weak security on such damning evidence.

Dinah explored the room, looking for anything that might lead them to a cure. Despite a fridge full of samples and vials, none of it appeared to be related to the toxin used on Grant.

"Well the good news is that, according to this, there _is_ an antidote," Bruce said.

"I knew it!" Dinah said with a smile.

"The bad news is there isn't any in this lab," he continued. "It looks like our man's name is James Lawton, and Grant's blackmail is assigned to him. If the antidote is anywhere, it's with him."

"Then let's go get him and the weapons and get the hell out of here," Dinah replied. "My uncle has less than a day left!"

"Just a second," Bruce cautioned. "I want to get a copy of these files. If we can't get the antidote, this information might be enough to let hospital techs synthesize one."

After a minute of downloading the files on the cure and anything else of interest he could find, Bruce unhooked his phone from the system, "Okay, let's get out of here."

They'd barely made it to the door when a powerful shockwave sent them flying across the room and hard into the wall. Bruce was fighting to stay conscious when he saw Lawton walk over to him.

"Huh, just kids," he said. "About the same age as my boys."

"Is that going to be a problem for you, Lawton?" asked the palest man Bruce had ever seen. "You're not getting sentimental on us, are you?"

"Ha, not likely," Lawton replied. "But my boys are useless. These two beat up a half dozen of our men, tracked us down and managed to sneak into the complex. I think we should find out what they know and who they've told."

"You have a point," the pale man agreed. "Take them to the holding cells and call the Interrogator."

Bruce's vision was swimming but he could see just well enough to watch bottom of Lawton's foot collide with his face before everything went dark.


	5. Chapter 5

_Chapter 5:_

"Bruce," he heard someone call. "Bruce, wake up!"

He felt something kick him in the leg before he forced his eyes open. It was Dinah, and had her hands shackled behind her to a chair that looked to be bolted to the floor. It took him a moment before he realized he was in a similar position. His mind was swimming and his head ached. Bruce was pretty sure he had a concussion.

"Bruce, thank God," Dinah sighed in relief. "I wasn't sure you were ever going to wake up."

"I'm not sure being awake is an improvement given our situation," Bruce replied as he tested his bonds. He made a note to himself that he'd put off his escape training too long and if he made it out of here alive, he was going to have to track down his father's old magician friend, Zatara.

"They said they were going to get their interrogator," Dinah informed him. "I'm not sure how long we've got, but I'm pretty sure we don't want to be here when he gets back. "What are you doing?"

Bruce was sure he looked rather odd as he contorted his leg behind him until his restrained hands could reach his shoe.

"I've got a lock pick in a seam on my shoe," he explained. "If I can get to it, I should be able to pick these cuffs."

"Is there anything you're not prepared for?" she asked in disbelief. Then added, "Other than a hot girl on your lap."

"Funny," Bruce quipped as he began working on the lock. "How long was I out?"

"I'm not sure," Dinah answered. "A few hours at least. When Lawton left I saw sunlight through the doorway."

He'd just about gotten it when Lawton and another man, Bruce assumed was the interrogator, walked in.

Whereas Lawton was a fairly tall man, standing at around six foot two, with an athletic build, a bad moustache and an obvious Texan accent, the Interrogator was pretty much the opposite. He was around five foot six, with a lanky build and beady eyes that seemed to scream insanity.

"Good, you're both awake now," Lawton said with an evil grin. "Now we can get down to business. This man is known simply as the Interrogator," he said pointing to his companion as the man opened a briefcase filled with dozens of intimidating looking blades, each one with a different curve or blade combination. "He excels at causing incredible amounts of pain while keeping his subject awake as long as possible."

The Interrogator drew one of the larger blades and what looked like a modified taser and made his way over to Bruce. This part was just a show. It was all about intimidation to make them as scared as possible and for now, Bruce had to play along.

"Torture us all you want, it's not going to change the fact that when we don't show up back at the hotel tonight, the police will be on their way here to look for us," Bruce bluffed. The truth was that no one knew where they were and even if they did, the police wouldn't last five minutes against the weaponry these people had.

"Bravado, so typical," the Interrogator said with a smile. "Next will come the pleading, then the crying and finally you'll tell me anything I want just in hopes that I'll kill you and make the pain stop."

"Maybe, but that takes time," Bruce countered. "I've trained for years to resist interrogations; just how long can you afford to waste on me?"

"Somehow I doubt you're nearly as strong as you claim, boy," Lawton laughed.

"Even so, I know his type, always the hero," the Interrogator said. "I bet he'll break much faster watching me torture his little girlfriend instead."

"Oh god, no! Please no!" Dinah cried, tears running down her face.

"Leave her alone!" Bruce shouted.

"Oh come now little girl, we're going to see what your insides look like," he taunted as he leaned in close and garnished the scary looking blade.

It was then that Bruce realized that everyone in the room, including him, had yet again made the mistake of underestimating this girl. Her face suddenly hardened and the tears stopped as she brought her knee up hard between the interrogator's legs. As he leaned forward in pain, she rammed her head hard into his face, crushing his nose and sending him crashing to the floor.

Lawton quickly drew his gun and aimed at Dinah, but her distraction had been all Bruce needed. He'd long since picked his cuffs and leapt from his seat, hitting the larger man with a hard right hook that sent him crashing to the floor and his gun flying across the room.

Lawton quickly got back to his feet and faced off against Bruce.

"Gotta admit, I'm impressed kid," Lawton said. "But I'm a trained assassin; do you really think you can take me?"

"Yes," was Bruce's only answer as he unleashed a hard kick to Lawton's ribs and followed it with another hard right hook.

Lawton cringed in pain from the kick, but managed to block the punch and counter with a knee into Bruce's abdomen. The two men traded blows, each consistently countering the other's attempts to land a finishing hit.

Despite still being shackled to her chair, Dinah had managed to work her legs around the Interrogator's neck and had him in a textbook sleeper hold. Bruce knew she'd learned to box from Grant, but moves like that made it clear he hadn't been her only teacher.

Lawton was nearly as good a fighter as Bruce and his age gave him a strength advantage that forced Bruce to stick to quick strike techniques. He didn't doubt he could beat Lawton, but both men knew Lawton didn't have to win. He only had to last until the noise from the fight attracted the attention of his men. Bruce needed to end this fight and soon!

As if she could read his mind, Dinah kicked the taser the Interrogator had dropped towards him. Bruce rolled under one of Lawton's kicks and quickly picked up the taser. As Lawton swung around with a follow up punch, Bruce blocked it and jammed the taser into his arm.

Lawton's screams of pain came out only as gurgles as his body convulsed from the electrical charge, before collapsing to the floor.

"You coward," Lawton gasped out. "You cheated."

"You're a criminal and a murderer," Bruce replied. "You don't deserve a fair fight," he finished before crashing his foot hard into Lawton's face, knocking him cold.

"You took your sweet time," Dinah chirped at him.

"Sorry, I didn't knock out the world class assassin sooner," Bruce quipped. "I'll do better next time."

"Nice timing with the cuffs though," Dinah smiled. "Wasn't sure if he was actually going to shoot me or not, but I'm glad I didn't have to find out."

"That was a pretty nice move yourself," Bruce replied as he finished picking her cuffs. "Applying a sleeper hold with your legs while chained to a chair is no easy feat."

"Something my Mom taught me," she replied with a smile.

"You have a scary family," Bruce said, shaking his head.

"You have no idea," Dinah laughed. "Any boy I take home to meet the family is going to be in trouble."

Once again finding himself feeling very awkward, Bruce quickly chained the two unconscious men up with their own cuffs and made sure to gag them in case the woke up too soon. Dinah frisked Lawton until she found a small metal vile in a pouch on his belt and a key card.

"Hopefully this is the antidote," she said.

Making his way over to the corner of the room where his phone and backpack sat on a table, he gathered his things up and checked the time.

"Damn, it's after five o'clock," he said as he once again accessed the complex's camera system.

"The fight starts in less than two hours!" Dinah nearly shouted. "Ted's only got a few hours left to live, we've got to hurry!"

"Looks like the armoury is in a small bunker, just behind the main building," Bruce told her. "If we can get inside, we should be able to blow it up."

"Umm, isn't blowing it up a bad idea?" Dinah questioned. "Won't that set off that black hole thingamajig and destroy the city?"

"No," Bruce replied as he shut down the camera in the hallway and made his way out the door. "A device like that can't just be detonated. It has to be armed and it'd take time to generate an energy field that powerful."

"You're sure?" she whispered.

"I'm sure," he replied, reasonably sure that he was sure.

They managed to sneak to the rear exit of the building with relative ease, but getting out the door was going to be more difficult. Three of the patrols intersected in the area and would be able to see anyone approaching the armoury.

"This is always easier in the movies," Dinah sighed.

"In the movies you can crawl through air ducts and every building has secret tunnels below it," Bruce replied as he scanned through the surveillance cameras. "What we need is a distraction."

"And where are we going to get one of those?" Dinah asked sardonically.

Bruce just grinned and showed her the image on his phone. The camera showed the pervert guard that had been watching them in the alley, walking over the same metal catwalk lining the wall they'd climbed over to get in. When he got to the right spot, Bruce tapped the screen and the little present he'd left behind released a powerful electrical charge, shocking the guard and sending him collapsing to the ground in much the same way Lawton had.

"You just happened to be carrying a remote control taser bomb with you?" Dinah asked in disbelief.

"I like to be prepared," he answered.

"Has anyone ever told you, you have paranoia issues?"

"Look. The other patrols are moving to investigate," Bruce said ignoring her question. "Let's move."

Dinah and Bruce moved quickly across the open ground to the armoury bunker. The door was secured with a key card and pin code access. Dinah pulled out Lawton's key card and Bruce pulled the facing off the panel and used a couple of alligator clips to connect his phone to the circuitry.

"Okay, that thing is definitely on my Christmas list," Dinah said.

"Sure, the service plan is only a thousand dollars a month and you have to write your own applications," Bruce teased.

"Good thing I've got a rich friend," she countered.

A moment later, Bruce had hacked the pin code, opened the door and the two moved inside.

"Whoa," was all Dinah could say.

The armoury was packed to the brim with hundreds of futuristic looking weapons. Some they recognized from the footage of the attack on the police or from the salesman's demonstration, but there were dozens of other types of weapons too; a few of which looked to be nearly as big as Bruce. Given the power the smaller weapons wielded, he wasn't sure he wanted to know how much damage the bigger ones could do.

"Look at this, Bruce," Dinah called.

He made his way over to her and nearly missed a step when he saw what she was pointing at. An entire wall was lined with Schwarzschild bombs.

"There must be nearly a hundred of them," Bruce said in near shock.

"They could wipe out an entire country with these," she replied in horror.

"No," Bruce countered as he finished the math in his head. "If they detonated all of these, they'd wipe out the planet."

"Okay, we need to blow these up, like now," Dinah said.

Looking around the room, Bruce found the small softball looking device he wanted and opened the outer housing.

"What's that?" Dinah asked.

"From what we saw from the news footage, I'm pretty sure it's a plasma grenade." Bruce replied as he set the device's built in timer. "They aren't supposed to exist."

"I don't think any of this stuff is supposed to exist," she replied. "Do you think we should take some of it with us? Get it checked out?"

"No, the world has enough weapons as it is," Bruce answered, setting the bomb in place. "I don't want to be part of giving it more."

Dinah nodded her head in agreement and the pair quickly made their way out of the building. They had three minutes to get clear of what was sure to be a large explosion.

"Come on, we've got to get back to the alley," he told her.

"What about the patrols?" Dinah asked. "That's kind of where your little distraction had them all going."

"Hopefully they've moved on by now," Bruce replied as he did his best to stick to the shadows. "And if not, you get to show me a few more of those moves your mother taught you."

When they got close, they saw three men still gathered around their now semi-conscious colleague. One seemed to be trying to ask him what happened while two others were carefully scouting the area with weapons raised.

Bruce pulled two baseballs he'd picked up from the sporting goods store from his bag and gave one to Dinah.

"How's your aim?" he asked.

She just gave him a wicked grin and then let loose a perfect fastball off the temple of the first guard. Before the other guards had time to react, Bruce hit the second one with his own toss.

The man that had been kneeling over his fallen friend quickly stood up and turned to see what was happening, but by the time he raised his weapon, the two teenagers were already on top of him and easily knocked the weapon aside before tossing him off the catwalk and crashing to the ground below.

Bruce threw the guns in a pile well away from the unconscious men and set one to overload before the two jumped back down to the alley.

The pervert guard was just getting back to his feet as they got to the bike. Bruce pulled his last little surprise from his bag and chucked it with perfect accuracy, easily smashing the man's jaw and making it unlikely he'd ever be able to wear that perverted grin again.

"Was that a boomerang?" Dinah questioned with disbelief. "Why the hell did you have a boomerang?"

"In a skilled hand, a boomerang can make a great weapon," Bruce explained. "It's silent and can move around corners."

"So tonight you hacked a satellite, used a remote taser bomb, disabled cameras and hacked a secure door, all with that crazy high-tech phone of yours, and you finish it off with a boomerang?" she asked, shaking her head. "Didn't you have ray gun or hypersonic, electrostatic whatsamajig you could have used?"

"I like boomerangs," Bruce replied calmly climbing on the back of the bike. "Let's get going. The fight will've already started by now."

As they pulled out of the alley, a massive explosion rocked the complex. As powerful as he knew the plasma grenades were, he hadn't expected something quite so big.

They could hear the sounds of sirens as they took off down the street, doing their best to avoid any on coming police. Hopefully they'd destroyed enough of the weapons to give the police a fighting chance and Bruce suspected the assassins would probably have an escape plan in place rather than risk a head on conflict anyway.


	6. Chapter 6

_Chapter 6:_

By the time they arrived at the Wembley arena, the fight was already in the third round.

"Maybe we should get them to call the fight," Bruce suggested. "I'm sure the ringside doctor would listen to you."

"You don't know Ted," Dinah replied. "No matter what they threaten him with, he's not going to lose a fight."

"Sounds like a stubborn man," Bruce sighed.

"Yeah, you two would get along perfectly," she countered.

It only took them a few minutes to get ringside. Being with the Champ's niece had its benefits; nearly every one of the arena staff knew her by name.

"Give me the vial," Bruce said, holding his hand out to Dinah.

"Bruce, we need to get this to Ted, _now!_" she replied. "Look at him. He's covered in sweat and moving at half the speed he normally does."

"The Champ's not looking good folks," they heard the announcer say at the ringside table. "No one expected this fight to be a challenge for the Wildcat Ted Grant, but right now it looks like he's going to be lucky to make it out of the third round."

"Dinah, do you remember me telling you that my phone was a lab on a chip?" Bruce asked. "It can check the fluid in the vial and make sure it actually _is_ the antidote and not just more poison."

Dinah looked up at her uncle with worry in her eyes, then back to Bruce, "Okay, but hurry. I've never seen him look so tired before."

Bruce took a sample of the fluid from the vial and tested it for the presence of the venom he'd found in the poison. Anti-venoms were made by harvesting antibodies from animals that had been injected with diluted versions of the venom; the vial was filled with far more antibodies than a normal anti-venom, but Bruce couldn't identify the animal they came from or if they'd even be safe for a human.

"Dinah, I think this is the antidote, but I've honestly never seen anything like this before," he explained. "I don't know if this will help him or kill him. With a few hours in a lab I could break it down like I did with the poison, but…" 

"Ted doesn't have a few hours," Dinah finished for him. "We have to try! It's that or let him die."

The bell rung to end the round and Dinah ran to Ted's corner.

"Ted, we've got it!" she called.

"Dinah! Where the hell have you been?" Ted scolded. "I was worried sick about you!"

"Never mind that now," she told him with a glare that said there was no point in arguing. "We've got the antidote! You have to drink it!" She pulled the top of the vial and presented it to him.

"Hey, wait!" a floor side official called, getting their attention. "You can't just ingest something in the middle of the fight. It has to be tested and approved."

"He's dying of poison, he has to drink the antidote!" she hollered back at him.

"If it's really that serious than he can forfeit the fight," the official replied.

"Okay, he forfeits!" she hollered.

"Like hell!" Ted laughed, dismissing the notion. "You just wait by the side of the ring and I'll drink it when the fight's over."

"Ted, don't be an idiot!" she shouted. "This isn't worth your life!"

"Little bird, this _is_ my life," Ted said, gently caressing her face with his gloved hand. "I've never given up in my life, never quit and I'm not about to start now. Kids look up to me, they'll accept it if I lose, but I can't just quit on them. Not now, not ever."

"But Ted…" Dinah protested with tears in her eyes, but the bell rang and Ted Grant turned his attention back to the ring.

"The damn fool is going to get himself killed just to win a stupid fight!" Dinah cried her voice filled more with worry than anger.

"No," Bruce argued as he put his arm around her. "He's not doing this to win a fight. He's doing it to prove that no matter what they throw at him, he'll do the right thing. He's doing it to show everyone that they can't make him surrender. Most of all he's doing it to show them not to mess with his family."

"I can't lose him Bruce," Dinah said in a weak voice. "I can't watch him die. Not like Dad."

"I know, Dinah," Bruce comforted her, knowing all too well what she was feeling. "But like you said, he's a stubborn man. He's not about to die tonight."

"The Champ's come out with renewed vigour this round," they heard the announcer say. "He's putting the challenger on his heels."

Bruce watched in awe as Grant lived up to his moniker, fighting like a wild animal. Bruce had studied the poison Grant was injected with. He knew that the Champ must be feeling exhausted and weak. His joints would be aching and his vision would be swimming. Just standing must have been a challenge, but Ted Grant would never give up. He was going to make sure his attackers got the message; they couldn't get to him through his niece.

The fight was going back and forth for another two rounds, when the challenger finally made a fatal mistake. He missed a punch and left himself open inside Grant's wheel house. They called it "Grant's Tomb, the deadliest chuck of real estate in the ring." If you stepped inside it, odds are you ended up flat on the mat, and this time was no different.

"One. Two. Three. Four. Five," the whole arena counted with the official. "Six. Seven! Eight! Nine!"

The ten was drown out by the sounds of screaming fans and Dinah rushed from Bruce's side, over the ropes and into the ring.

Bruce smiled as he watched her practically force the vial down Grant's throat. Had it been lethal or worsened the virus, the effects would have been almost immediate, so it was pretty safe to assume that the antidote worked, but just in case, Bruce forward his files to the local Wayne Tech bio lab and sent Lucius an e-mail to ensure that it was made top priority, simply telling him that Grant had been poisoned and though the local medical teams thought they had an antidote, he was a fan of the Champ and wanted to be sure Wayne Industries did their part to help out.

He watched for a moment as they celebrated in the ring before melting into the crowd. It was time to get back to his life, and he had one hell of a headache.


	7. Chapter 7

_Epilogue:_

The next day Bruce walked out the front door of his hotel to find Ted Grant leaning up against the biggest looking street bike he'd ever seen in his life. As mean as it looked, it suited the Wildcat perfectly.

"Hey kid," Ted called to him. "You didn't stick around last night."

"Thought it seemed like more of a family moment," Bruce replied.

"You put your neck on the line when you didn't have to. You saved my life and kept my niece alive," Ted countered, standing up and putting a fatherly hand on Bruce's shoulder. "I'd say that pretty much makes you family."

"Thanks Mister Grant," Bruce answered. "But I just helped out. I did what anyone would do."

"Right, because anyone would take on an army of killer assassins with ray guns," Ted laughed. "Now come on kid, you paid good money to train with the Champ and I've got a few moves to show you that you won't find in any old man's dojo."

"Okay," Bruce grinned. Maybe having the right friends wasn't such a bad idea.

"Now about my niece…"

Then again…


End file.
